High Fructose Corn Syrup and Honeybees

A recent article in Psychology Today describes a study that links honeybee population decline to a pesticide called Imidacloprid, used heavily on corn crops since 2004. Bee colonies were kept enclosed for six months and fed HFCS (often used for bee winter food) with different levels of the pesticide. How quickly they died off correlated to how high the level was –but they all died except for the control colony, which had no pesticide exposure. Scary!! Given the very low Imidacloprid levels used, the study shows there isn’t really a safe amount for bees. Several countries have stopped using it for this reason. The US has not, and since High Fructose Corn Syrup is not directly sold to people, (only in the products that we buy) it’s not monitored for residue levels. Not safe for bees, it could affect our population too.